DYLAN WAITED anxiously in the waiting room. His leg started to shake as he waited. Just as he was about to go and ask the receptionist when he could go into his wife's section of the ER for the tenth time, he decided against it. He already knew the answer anyway.

When the doctors begin to stabilize her, then you can go in.

They have to clean her wounds up, sir.

   It was driving him absolutely crazy that he couldn't check in on his wife. He wanted to hold her so badly, but how could he when she was resting on the other side of the waiting room, in a hospital bed, possibly crammed with wires?

  He pulled out his phone to look at the time: 7:59 PM. Dylan shook his head, not knowing what else to do.

Instead of moaning and groaning about waiting to be called in, he plugged in his ear buds and turned it to Night Changes by One Direction, reflecting on the night he had dedicated it to Valerie when they were in a long-distance relationship. . .

Going out tonight,
   Changes into something red,
Her mother doesn't like that kind of dress,
    Everything she knew she had, she's showing off. . .

~

"I'm just scared that one day you'll go off with someone else," Valerie said into the phone. Dylan laid in his grandmother's sofa, staring up at the ceiling. He chuckled a bit, knowing that the feelings he had for her would never change.

"Really babe?" he asked her, his nose scrunched up with a smirk on his lips as he continued to chuckle. "That's not going to happen and you should know that by now."

"Yeah but the day I bore you to death will be the day you find someone else," Valerie reasoned. Dylan shook his head, knowing that his girlfriend of five months couldn't see him.

"Listen to Night Changes by One Direction," he replied, cracking his index finger with his thumb. "It will explain everything."

With a sigh, Valerie agreed. She wasn't a big fan of One Direction --- Dylan was convinced she was a closeted directioner --- but when it came to significance and lyrics, she was all for it.

~

. . . We're only getting older, baby,
And I've been thinking about you lately,
    Does it ever drive you crazy,
Just how fast the night changes?

   Everything that you've ever dreamed of,
Disappearing when you wake up,
  But there's nothing to be afraid of,
Even when the night changes,
  'Cause it will never change me and you. . .

~

"My feelings for you are never going to change," Dylan said as soon as Valerie called her beloved boyfriend back after she heard the song. Let's face it: the 4'9" girl was a blushing mess.

"I'm sorry for thinking that," she said after she teared up. "I've been hurt before, sometimes I have a hard time believing people."

Dylan pursed his lips, putting his thoughts into her statement. The one thing he never wanted to do was hurt her.

"I'm not going to hurt you." he said. "I love you. . ."

~

"Dylan Matthews?"

   Dylan unplugged the ear buds from his ears, raising his head up and turned it to the doorway opened for him on the left. He turned off the music and stood up. He began to walk behind the nurse escorting him to the room Valerie was in.

  As the walked past the multiple rooms, everything seemed to be in slow motion. To Dylan, the walk seemed endless. His heart was pumping, his eyes wide open, but his mind was scattered with worry.

  All he wanted was to see his wife.